Following through on an earlier post, I bought myself two dozen Eneloop AAAs of the latest 800mAh generation. I've just done a first discharge and recharge cycle on all of them to check them out. It may be interesting to anyone else considering them.
All mine were in the latest cardboard only packaging and stamped 2021-04 manufacture, so been on the shelf for 18 months+.
Discharge and charge were at 1C (ie 800mA) just to keep the time down. The powerex charger can do any rate you like upto about 2 amps. Charge and deplete them slower and you would expect to put more in and get more out but the 1 hour rate is somewhere to start.
8 best cells had 540 to 550mAh left of their factory charge
9 had 520 to 540 mAh
6 had 510 to 520 mAh
That's consistent to better than 10%
1 weak cell had just 471 mAh left which still isn't desparately far from the rest.
Charging at 1C, I got between 649 and 754mAh into each cell. Most cells took 700mAh+
These numbers are all good enough for me.
By measuring each of them, I can match them up in pairs and 4's for my different devices. The absolute numbers don't matter to me very much, as long as the cells in each set run out close together. I'll discharge them flat and recharge every 6 or 12 mths in storage or whenever I flatten them in use.
